Photograph provided by Texas Tech.

BY DON WILLIAMS l AVALANCHE-JOURNAL

To go to the NCAA outdoor track and field championships and win his event, Texas Tech shot putter Harrison Benjamin might need to throw 3 feet further than he ever has.

That’s not as impossible as it might sound.

After all, in Benjamin’s last two meets, he threw 62 feet, 13/4 inches to win the Big 12 Conference championship and 64-33/4 to win the NCAA Midwest Regional. In each case, the fifth-year senior broke his Tech career bests by about 2 feet.

Talk about peaking at the right time.

“I’ve never thrown 64 feet in practice. I’ve never thrown 60 feet in practice,’’ Benjamin said. “But competition always brings the best out of me.’’

Benjamin, a 5-foot-9, 265-pound senior from Humble, will try to go out with a bang in the NCAA outdoor meet this week in Fayetteville, Ark. He’d worked his way into the national top 20 and then the top 10 earlier this season, and his remarkable throw two weeks ago at the Midwest Regional in Norman, Okla., jumped him into the top five.

“He’s had a good year, but he’s just really come on unbelievably in the last few weeks,’’ Tech coach Wes Kittley said. “I just think he’s healthy, and he’s just a competitor. He’s one of those guys who, when you get near the end of the season, he starts to have a different intensity about himself. Those fellows know how to perform at big meets.’’

That doesn’t mean Benjamin works himself into a frenzy.

Take that 64-foot throw, for example. He was already in first place with a 61-foot effort, and threw his career best on his last attempt.

Not that you could tell it by looking at him.

“I just walked out of the ring, my normal little walk,’’ he said. “It was nothing special. I don’t like to be full of myself or whatever. I don’t like to get too intense. It takes a lot of energy to get too intense. I reserve all that.’’

Benjamin has learned to take the highs with the lows, because he’s had to overcome some of the latter, too. He redshirted two years ago, forced to sit out with a twice-torn left quadriceps. He hurt his the first time doing power cleans in the weight room.

“They call it a freak accident,’’ he said. “It just popped.’’

A month later, leaving one of his classrooms at Tech, Benjamin exited the building and slipped off a snow- and ice-covered ramp walkway. His left leg folded under him and messed up the quadriceps again.

He still has a foot-long scar on his left leg from surgery, and guesses it’s only about 85 percent of optimum health.

“I did a lot of squats and a lot of bending to get my range of motion back,’’ he said. “It still hurts every once in a while today. I’m probably going to deal with that the rest of my life. It took probably three months to get my whole range of motion back in my leg. I just kept at it.’’

Benjamin returned to competition in 2008, but said the leg felt exhausted by this time last year. He finished ninth at the NCAA outdoor, missing all-American designation by one place.

The leg injury wasn’t Harrison’s last letdown.

He didn’t qualify for this year’s NCAA indoor championships, because he got sick and performed poorly at the Big 12 indoor meet.

“It was a big disappointment,’’ he said. “But at the same time, it was OK; time to move on. I think it was a sign. I was going in (ranked) No. 1 (in the Big 12). I think I was going in letting that get to me and making me think I was going to do it easy. It was kind of a wakeup call.’’

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The book on Benjamin

- Won Class 5A state championship in high school.

- Nicknamed “Tank’’

-Chose Tech over Texas, Houston, Texas-San Antonio and North Carolina A&T, where his parents attended. “I was set on going to UT,’’ he said, “but I had one more college visit left and changed my mind because of the coaching and the environment.’’

-Father, Harold Benjamin, is a satellite technician for Continental Airlines. Mother, Susan Benjamin, is a computer programmer for Exxon Mobil.

-Plans to coach or possibly pursue pro career in his event. “Shot put has taken me a long way,’’ he said. “It probably will take me more places, the older I get and the more years I go through it.’’

Track & field
-What: NCAA outdoor championships
-When: Wednesday through Saturday
-Where: John McDonnell Field, Fayetteville, Ark.
-Who: 544 men’s athletes; 544 women’s athletes

-Texas Tech men’s contingent: Harrison Benjamin, Sr., shot put; Darrell Roddick, Jr., long jump and triple jump; Gil Roberts, So., 400 meters; Gilbert Limo, So., 3,000-meter steeplechase; Brandon Washington, So., Rodney Mims, Sr., Lamont Adams, So., and Roberts, 1,600-meter relay; Tim Foster, Jr., relay alternate; Markus Henderson, Fr., relay alternate.

-Tech women’s contingent: D’Andra Carter, Sr., discus; Ozie Okolie, Jr., hammer throw; Patience Knight, Sr., shot put; Lillian Badaru, Jr., 5,000 meters; Gladys Kipsang, Jr., 1,500 meters; Asia Diaz, Sr., 800 meters; Sandra Iwunze, Jr., 400-meter hurdles; Terra Evans, Fr., 100 meters.